Posted on March 4, 2008 by Avi Flax

NIN at the Cutting Edge of Music Distribution

With the release of their new album Ghosts I-IV, Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails have raised the bar of music distribution to the next notch.

The first order page :

A great set of options, ranging the gamut from free to $300, from digital downloads to CDs to vinyl to Blue-Ray. I really like that the options are selectable with check boxes, so, for instance I could order the $5 download and the $10 2-CD set, with a single transaction, without having to add them to a "shopping cart" and then "check out".

If you click the "more info" link under the $5 download option, this graphic pops up:

Again, a great set of options, covering a full range of convenience, quality, and ideology. The rest of the ordering process is straightforward and effective. I didn't think of getting screen shots, but the screen where you choose which file format you want - which smartly appears during the "pickup" phase, after payment - is clear and - again - effective.

I actually like that the non-free download option has a fixed price of $5 - there's less to decide than a name-your-own-price scheme such as Radiohead used for In Rainbows, and it means that I know that the musician is good with the price. Plus it's just a bargain - 36 CD-quality DRM-free tracks for $5!

ReadWriteWeb has some good background about Reznor's previous attempt at digital music distribution. The Wall Street Journal's Business Technology blog laughably describes BitTorrent as an "underground filing-trading service." (And who wrote that post anyway? It's anonymous! Lame.)

Tip: Downloaded the album, and wondering where to keep that nice PDF booklet? If you use iTunes, you can just drop it in to your library, right next to the tracks themselves. I even set the Artist and Album fields so that the booklet shows up in the track listing.

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Posted on September 11, 2007 by Richard Ziade

Arc90, Inc. - Now Providing Soundtrack Services

One of the things that makes Arc90 unique is the diverse collection of personalities and talent here. We're chock full of artists, musicians, writers - all sorts of creative types. Our very own Patrick Force just did us all proud by providing the kickin' soundtrack to FCU : Fact Checkers Unit starring Bill Murray. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that Patrick doesn't stroll in one day with Jerry Bruckheimer and hands us his two-week notice.

Here's the film in all its glory :

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Posted on June 11, 2007 by Joel Nagy

Windows Live Writer Beta 2

I'm writing this entry from Windows Live Writer and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed so far.  One of the things that I liked (not even related to blogging) while installing it was that instead putting the typical installation pop-ups in the center of the screen it put them in the lower right corner.  This kept them out of my way by putting them in a spot that I would still notice them while allowing me to continue with other tasks.  Simple UI enhancements like this just make the install experience a little more pleasurable.

The UI is nice and clean and makes it very easy to add entries.  I had a bit of trouble at first posting to our internal blog here at Arc90. With my own personal blogs and a few test blogs I had no trouble.  It works with almost every popular blog API, however it does lack a few features I'd like to see such as image uploading to a Blogger account or other image uploading features other than FTP.

It does support plugins, so maybe someone will be able to write a plugin that recognizes the Blogger image API, or write a plugin that works with common sites such as PhotoBucket or ImageShack.  Other popular blog apps already support handling images elsewhere so I assume this feature will be enhanced come the official public release.  One other cool feature is the ability to insert a map (using Live Maps of course.)

I've used about a half-dozen other blog writing applications and have not found one that meets all my needs.  I recently tried Post2Blog when they released version 3 as freeware, but it immediately annoyed me with a poor layout; the title of the post you are writing is on the right hand side and seems very out of place.  I had used Performancing for a while and I liked it a lot.  Integration with the browser was a nice feature but not a need in my opinion.  The other's I've used don't even warrant a mention compared to Windows Live Writer.

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